8 Strange Cases of People Pretending to be Doctors

From a creeper who tricked women into physical examinations to a man who learned to perform medical procedures from YouTube­­, we count eight strange cases of ordinary people pretending to be doctors!

8 – Fake Psychiatrist Has Mental Issues,

In the Nineties, Australian woman Nora Zacardas made a very healthy living pretending to be a psychiatrist. Her clients were charged thousands of dollars to hear her very questionable advice. She was eventually arrested, but crazy won’t be kept down and Nora was back at it before long.

In the late 2000s, she started telling friends she was a medical intern. They claimed to have no reason not to believe her because apparently her history of lying about this exact thing didn’t count. Nora performed physical examinations on her friends, prescribed them drugs and tricked hospital staff into allowing her to watch procedures. Her own doctor even promised her a job once she finished med school.

Nora eventually came unstuck when the suspicious mother of a patient called the New South Wales Medical Board and discovered Nora had no medical training. She was sentenced to nine months in prison in 2011.

7 – University Dropout Becomes Doctor to Royalty,

Swiss university dropout Leander Tomarkin had a strange hobby. For days at a time, he would haul himself up in his father’s laboratory and invent weird potions.

In 1922, one of his potions, ‘Anticrobum’, caught the attention of Pope Benedict XV, who’d heard that it could fight pneumonia. The pope died before Leander could treat him, but the offer made him internationally famous.

Before long, Leander – a man with no formal medical training – became the King of Italy’s family physician and ran chemistry conferences with Albert Einstein.

Industrialised antibiotics eventually rendered Antimicrobum obsolete, but the charlatan Leander had a good run while it lasted.

6 – Fake Doctor Promises Cancer Cure,

Despite having no medical training, Keith Allen Barton from California told many people he could cure cancer and HIV. He claimed to have two hundred doctors on staff and surgeons located in Tijuana.

Most would’ve ordinarily seen through his bs, but the patients who were contacting him were desperate and willing to try anything to beat their terminal illnesses. Keith also shared his name with an actual doctor practising in California, which made him more convincing.

Among his many crimes, Keith convinced a woman suffering from an auto-immune disease to have her teeth a section of her jaw surgically removed. He then charged her $32,000 for a worthless treatment. Another woman was told that her and her two children’s HIV would be cured. She paid him $18,000, and her nine-year-old daughter died from being denied proper treatment.

Keith Allen Barton was eventually exposed by an undercover officer – with a little help from karma, of course. He was sentenced to six years’ prison.

5 – Sexual Predator Fools Women into Full-Body Examinations,

In 2015, 25-year-old Michael Camilo Precht from Malta was charged with posing as a doctor after he fooled three models into letting him examine them.

Michael told the models he was setting up a Lifeguard Academy website and that he wanted to hire them. He claimed his insurance company required medical check-ups – but, hey, no worries, ladies, he happens to be a doctor and can do the examinations himself! Convenient!

After putting his greasy paws all over them, Michael wrote: ‘You need a boyfriend who gives you a massage every day’ on his fake medical report. The shocked women immediately took the note to police and Michael was jailed for two years and fined €2,329. He now gets all the physicals he wants from Bubba.